"It is the very best plan, and far less troublesome than going round to everybody, and they will be slightly prepared, for the dear Duchess will have mentioned something of what I said this morning to her friends, and I know she will come. She won't mind visiting us here just once again, and Jasmine will come, and--and many other people, and we will put the thing to the test. Yes, mother, this day fortnight they shall come, and I will write the invitations to-night, and to-morrow you and I will go to Bloomsbury and look for a suitable house, for by the time they come, mother, the house will have been taken, and I hope the agreement made out, and the landlord will have been consulted, and he will make the improvements I suggest and will require. It is a big thing, mother, a great big venture for two lone women like ourselves, but we will succeed, darling, we _must_ succeed." "You are a rock of strength, West," she answered, half proudly, half sadly, "you are just like your father." That night I sent out the invitations. They were ordinary notes of invitation, for on second thoughts I resolved not to prepare our many acquaintances beforehand. "Mrs. Wickham at home on such a day," nothing more. I posted the letters and slept like a top that night, and in the morning awoke with the tingling sensation which generally comes over me when I have a great deal to do, and when there is an important and very interesting matter at stake. I used to feel like that at times when I was at school. On the day when I won the big scholarship, and was made a sort of queen of by the other girls, I had the sensation very strongly, and I felt like it also when a terrible illness which mother had a few years ago came to a crisis, and her precious life lay in the balance. Here was another crisis in my career, almost the most important which had come to me yet, and I felt the old verve and the old strong determination to conquer fate. Fate at present was against me, but surely I was a match for it: I was young, strong, clever, and I had a certain _entrée_ into society which might or might not help me. If society turned its back on me, I could assuredly do without it. If, on the other hand, it smiled on me, success was assured in advance. I ran downstairs to breakfast in the best of spirits. I had put on my very prettiest white dress, and a white hat trimmed with soft silk and feathers. "Why, Westenra, dressed already?" said mother. "Yes, and you must dress too quickly, Mummy. Oh, there is Paul. Paul, we shall want the victoria at ten o'clock."